KfW for Foreign Buyers in Germany: Who Qualifies in 2026

What the current programme documents actually say, which programmes are open in August 2026, and the deadline that costs people the money.

Quick answer

Yes. No KfW housing programme has a nationality, visa or residence condition. What decides it is whether you live in the property, your income two and three years back, and one deadline: apply before you sign at the notary.

Nationality is not a condition anywhere, and that is deliberate

We read the current programme sheets for every residential KfW programme: 300, 308, 297 and 298, 261, 458 and 455-B. Each one names the eligible applicants in the same way, as natural persons, and each requires the property to be located in Germany. None of them mentions German citizenship, EU citizenship, a residence permit type, or German tax residency.

Absence in a document is weak evidence on its own, so here is the stronger point. KfW writes nationality tests when it means them. The KfW student loan has a dedicated form for non-German applicants that requires either a German school-leaving qualification or EU citizenship with at least three years of lawful residence, certified by the immigration office. Nothing remotely comparable exists for any housing programme. The silence is a decision, not an oversight.

So what does gate a foreign national? Two things, and neither is KfW. The first is the financing bank, which underwrites you on its own criteria before it forwards a KfW application at all. The second applies only to the income-tested programmes: they are built on German taxable income for two specific past years, and someone who was not tax-resident in Germany in those years has a documentation problem. Whether KfW accepts a foreign tax assessment in that situation is not addressed in any programme sheet we read, and we have not been able to confirm it.

The deadline that costs people the money

If you take one thing from this page, take this. The application has to reach KfW before you sign the purchase contract at the notary. Not before completion, not before the land registry entry, not before the money moves. Before signature.

The programme sheet for the renovation loan states it without hedging: starting the project before applying is förderschädlich, which means it destroys eligibility. For a purchase, the programme sheets define the start of the project as the conclusion of the purchase contract. The programme sheet for Jung kauft Alt spells out the sequence directly, requiring the application to be made before the notarial purchase contract is concluded.

Loans go through a bank, never directly. Programmes 300, 308, 297, 298, 261 and 124 are applied for through a financing institution of your choice, which forwards the application to KfW.
You may start after the application arrives but before approval, at your own risk. The programme sheets permit it and say plainly that it creates no legal entitlement to the funding.
One documented exception. For programme 261, a documented advisory meeting with the financing partner before the contract is concluded counts, and the relevant start of works becomes the building work itself.
Grants invert the sequence. The heating grant, programme 458, is applied for directly through KfW's customer portal, and it requires the contract with the installer to be signed before you apply, but subject to a condition tied to KfW's approval. An unconditional contract signed first kills the grant.

What is actually open in August 2026

Programme numbers change, tiers close, and budgets run out mid-year. This table reflects the programme sheets and KfW newsroom notices as of 24 August 2026.

Programme	What it funds	Headline amount	Status
308 Jung kauft Alt	Buying an existing home in energy class F, G or H, then renovating it to a defined efficiency standard within 54 months	140,000 / 160,000 / 180,000 euro for 1 / 2 / 3 or more children, raised on 3 August 2026	Open
300 Wohneigentum für Familien	Building or first purchase of a new owner-occupied home	170,000 to 220,000 euro, or 220,000 to 270,000 euro with quality certification	Open
297 and 298 Klimafreundlicher Neubau	New build to a high efficiency standard. 297 for owner-occupiers, 298 for everyone else including landlords	100,000 euro per unit, 150,000 with quality certification	Open, but see the note below
261 Wohngebäude Kredit	Renovating an existing building to an efficiency-house standard, or first purchase of one already renovated	150,000 euro per unit, plus repayment bonuses of 0 to 10 percent by class	Open
458 Heizungsförderung	Replacing a heating system	30 percent base grant, up to 70 percent, up to 80 for owner-occupiers in the lowest income tier	Open
455-B Barrierereduzierung	Barrier reduction, for example a step-free bathroom	10 percent, or 12.5 percent for the full standard	Suspended since 31 July 2026, 2026 funds fully committed, no reopening date announced
124 Wohneigentumsprogramm	Owner-occupied purchase	up to 100,000 euro	Listed, but the programme sheet has not been updated since June 2023 while every other one here was refreshed in 2026. Confirm with your bank before relying on it

One conflict we could not resolve: the landing page for the new-build programmes says the efficiency-house 55 tier closes to new applications at the end of June 2026, while the July 2026 programme sheet still lists it. Treat that tier as closed until KfW clears it up.

And one thing that does not exist: there is no KfW retail programme for student housing or boarding facilities. The federal Junges Wohnen scheme runs from the federal government to the states, which administer it through their own development banks. If you are building or buying student accommodation as a private landlord, you are in programme 298 for new build or 261 for existing stock, like any other residential investor.

The income test, and the trap inside it

Programmes 300 and 308 use the same test. The ceiling is 90,000 euro with one child, plus 10,000 euro for each further child. So 100,000 with two children, 110,000 with three.

The trap is which income counts. It is not what you earn now. It is the average of your taxable income in the second and third calendar years before the application. For an application made in 2026, that means 2024 and 2023.

For an internationally mobile household this cuts both ways, and both directions matter. If your salary jumped after you arrived, you may still qualify on an income you no longer have. If you moved to Germany in 2024, you may have no German tax assessment for 2023 at all, which is precisely the case the programme sheets do not address.

Children only count if they are already born at the time of application and under 18. A child born afterwards does not raise the ceiling.
The income of a spouse or partner in the future household is included. The children's own income is not.
Programme 300 only: applicants must own no residential property at the time of application. Whether that extends to property owned outside Germany is not addressed in the programme sheet, and for an internationally mobile buyer it is the single most consequential open question on this page.
You must live in the property for at least five years from moving in, with an interruption of at most two years. Breaking that raises the interest rate on the loan by one full percentage point from the moment the change occurs.

The heating grant works on entirely different numbers: a bonus of 40, 30 or 10 percent at household taxable income up to 30,000, 40,000 and 50,000 euro respectively, with the threshold raised by 10,000 euro if there is at least one child, and again measured on the average of the two relevant preceding tax years. The renovation and new-build loans, 261 and 297 and 298, have no income ceiling at all.

If you are buying to let, most of this closes

This is where the family branding misleads people. Three of the headline programmes require you to live in the property, so an investor cannot use them at any price.

Programme	Works for a rented-out property?
300, 308, 124, 297	No. All require owner-occupation, and 300 and 308 attach a five-year residence commitment with an interest-rate penalty for breaking it
298	Yes. It is written explicitly for applicants who do not live in the building. This is the new-build route for a landlord
261	Yes. The eligibility list carries no owner-occupation requirement. This is the renovation route for a landlord
458	Partly. The 30 percent base grant is available for rented property, but the speed bonus and the income bonus are for owner-occupiers only, so a landlord's realistic maximum is far below the 70 percent headline

So for an investor the honest picture is two instruments and a partial third, not a menu.

What this means for a normal flat in a German city

Most of the money on this page is aimed at new build or at whole buildings. If you are buying an existing apartment, the realistic set is smaller than the table suggests.

Out of reach: 297, 298 and 300 are new-build instruments. An existing flat does not qualify, whatever its condition.
Usually reachable: the heating grant, 458, where the flat has its own heating system. If the building has central heating, the owners' association applies, not you individually.
Reachable with conditions: 308, if you have a child under 18, meet the income ceiling, own no other home, will live in it, and the building sits in energy class F, G or H.
Reachable in principle only: 261. The efficiency-house standard applies to the whole building, so a single flat owner generally cannot reach it unless the owners' association acts collectively. The programme sheet does list associations as applicants in their own right.
Always budget for the expert. An accredited energy efficiency expert is mandatory for 261, for 297 and 298, and for the renovation part of 308.

What we could not verify

Four things we would want confirmed before anyone acts on them, listed here rather than smoothed over.

Whether KfW accepts a foreign tax assessment as evidence of income for programmes 300 and 308 when the applicant was not tax-resident in Germany in the relevant years.
Whether the no-existing-property condition in programme 300 covers residential property owned outside Germany.
Whether the efficiency-house 55 tier of the new-build programmes is genuinely closed, given that the landing page and the programme sheet disagree.
Whether programme 124 is still open to new applications, given that its programme sheet is three years old while every other one was refreshed this year.

All programme figures on this page come from the KfW programme sheets and newsroom notices themselves rather than from secondary summaries, because the amounts for Jung kauft Alt changed on 3 August 2026 and most English-language write-ups still carry the old ones.

What would change this answer

A new version of any programme sheet. KfW dates each one, and the amounts and tiers change inside a calendar year.
A suspension notice. Programme 455-B was suspended on 31 July 2026 because the year's funds were committed, and any programme can go the same way.
The federal budget cycle, which is what sets those funds in the first place.

Last reviewed August 24, 2026. Reviewed by Nicholas Runtic and Abdelrahman Maged, co-founders of LDP Group, before publication and at every review date. We review this page every quarter and whenever KfW issues a new programme sheet or a suspension notice. If you are reading it more than three months after the date above, open the programme sheet linked below before acting on any figure.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need German citizenship or permanent residence to get KfW funding?

No. None of the current residential programme sheets contains a nationality, visa, residence or tax-residency condition. They name eligible applicants as natural persons and require the property to be in Germany. KfW does write nationality tests when it wants them, as its student loan programme shows, so the absence here is deliberate.

When exactly do I have to apply?

Before you sign the purchase contract at the notary. The programme sheets treat the conclusion of the purchase contract as the start of the project, and starting before applying destroys eligibility. You may start after the application has reached KfW but before approval, at your own risk.

Can I apply to KfW myself?

For the loans, no. Programmes 300, 308, 297, 298, 261 and 124 are applied for through a financing bank of your choice. The heating grant, programme 458, is different: you apply directly in KfW's customer portal, and there the installer contract must be signed before you apply but made conditional on KfW's approval.

I want to rent the flat out. Which programmes still work?

Programme 298 for new build and programme 261 for existing stock and renovation, plus the 30 percent base rate of the heating grant. The family programmes 300, 308 and 124 and the owner-occupier new-build programme 297 all require you to live in the property.

My income is above the ceiling now, but it was lower when I arrived in Germany. Does that help?

It might. The test uses the average of your taxable income in the second and third years before the application, so an application in 2026 is measured on 2024 and 2023. The reverse problem is more common: someone who arrived in 2024 may have no German tax assessment for 2023 at all, and the programme sheets do not say how that is handled.

Can I use KfW funding if I am not a German citizen?